初探新興金融監理制度之擴散：以監理沙盒為例

Examining the Diffusion of Emerging Financial Regulatory Regimes: The Case of Regulatory Sandbox

近年來，金融科技的興起帶來創新的金融服務並衝擊現有的監理方式。有些國家採取觀望的策略；有些國家則採取修改法律、推出新的執照制度甚或實驗型的監理模式。自2015年英國提出金融監理沙盒（Regulatory Sandbox）制度以來，許多國家陸續跟進，以監理沙盒實驗作為探索風險、重思監理疆界，並協助金融創新落地發展的措施。監理沙盒堪稱近年來擴散速度最快、影響最為深遠的一種新興金融監理制度。本文探究導致各國相繼採行金融監理沙盒制度的原因，並找出該制度在各國擴散的主要影響因子。藉由量化分析，本研究探索各國金融市場的開放與競爭現況、國家法律體系，以及國際金融治理參與等變項，試圖找出擁有監理沙盒制度的國家有何共通之處，期能瞭解新興金融監理制度在各國擴散的機轉。本文指出，競爭較低的市場更容易實施金融監理沙盒，而國家的法律體系特徵對推動金融沙盒可能沒有影響，某些國際金融組織則可作為國家間傳遞資訊、彼此學習的管道。本文認為，監理沙盒制度在近年蓬勃發展與國內市場特徵以及監理機關在國際上的連繫有關，金融科技業者會受到市場特徵的吸引而遊說監理機關允許在市場運作，受到監理壓力的監理機關透過國家與非國家行為者構建的跨國監理網絡而學習解決方案，網絡扮演政策教育、傳遞，與協助決策的管道，將監理沙盒制度在很短的時間內推廣到許多國家。

In recent years, the rise of Fintech has introduced innovative financial services and has brought a significant impact on the existing financial regulatory frameworks. Financial regulators in different countries deal with the challenges in different ways: some adopt a “wait and see” strategy, in which they do not enact new regulatory institutions. Some countries take a more active approach through revision of laws, issuing new licenses, and adopting an experimental regulatory mechanism. Since the United Kingdom announced the financial regulatory sandbox in 2015, many countries followed and adopted regulatory experiments. Such efforts explore regulatory risk, review regulatory frontier, and assist innovative finance to grow in local markets. Regulatory sandbox is one of the emerging financial regulatory regimes that spread more effectively and have the most impacts in recent years. This paper explores the underlying reasons for countries adopting financial regulatory sandboxes by attempting to pinpoint the main factors that help diffuse this institution to different countries. This paper adopts quantitative analysis to examine variables concerning financial openness and competition in domestic markets, legal systems, and participation in global financial governance. The analysis intends to identify the common characteristics of countries that have adopted regulatory sandboxes. It also tries to examine whether linkage in international society can affect the decisions of regulatory agencies, in which it expects to confirm the mechanism of policy diffusion between countries. Through this examination, the result suggests that markets with low competition are more likely to implement regulatory sandbox; however, this type of legal system has no confirmed effect as of yet. In addition, certain international financial organizations serve as learning channels and information exchanges. The paper concludes that the development of sandbox regimes in recent years largely depends on the characteristics of domestic markets and connections between global financial regulators. Governmental agencies and non-governmental actors constitute a transnational regulatory network that carries out policy education, diffusion of policies, and consultation on decision making, which helped the diffusion of regulatory sandbox to various countries within a short period of time.